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The art of climate change

Mark Maslin co-authors Times review of National Theatre production of Greenland

A review of the National Theatre’s multi-authored production of Greenland by Professor Mark Maslin, with Richard Hamblyn, Writer in Residence at the UCL Environment Institute, appeared in the Times monthly science section, Eureka, on Thursday 3 March. The review argues that, like other recent plays, novels and TV programmes on climate change, the play’s emphasis on the “scientist-as-hero” tends to misrepresent the collaborative nature of science. Climate change is an all-encompassing planetary phenomenon and a global political challenge, but the arts remain resolutely human-scale, with a single character or motif standing in for an array of competing ideas. This production has attracted some conventional criticism, but there is praise here for the central scene as a brilliantly nuanced examination of the 2009 Copenhagen Summit’s collective policy failure.

A number of future performances are also anticipated which are likely to give further cultural expression to climate change issues.